{
 "id": "robert-louis-stevenson/i-sit-up-here-at-midnight",
 "title": "I Sit Up Here at Midnight",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Robert Louis Stevenson",
 "poet_slug": "robert-louis-stevenson",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished)",
 "book_slug": "poems-hitherto-unpublished",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 10,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1921,
  "venue": "Poems by Robert Louis Stevenson (Hitherto Unpublished) (1921)",
  "note": "The volume's title page states that these poems were hitherto unpublished, and no earlier printing of them has been established. The 1921 date is the year of first printing, but not necessarily of this exact copy: the volume states that it is a complimentary edition struck from the same type forms as the Bibliophile Society's edition of the same year.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-louis-stevenson_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlvol28stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/worksofrobertlou14stev",
   "https://archive.org/details/newpoemsandvaria00stevuoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemshithertounp00stevrich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31291",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30659",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/441",
   "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Poems,_by_Robert_Louis_Stevenson,_hitherto_unpublished"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 34,
  "max_indent": 1
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I sit up here at midnight,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wind is in the street,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The rain besieges the windows",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the sound of many feet.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I see the street lamps flicker,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I see them wink and fail;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The streets are wet and empty,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It blows an easterly gale.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Some think of the fisher skipper",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Beyond the Inchcape stone;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "But I of the fisher woman",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That lies at home alone.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She raises herself on her elbow",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And watches the firelit floor;",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "Her eyes are bright with terror,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her heart beats fast and sore.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Between the roar of the flurries,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When the tempest holds its breath,",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "She holds her breathing also⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is all as still as death.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "She can hear the cinders dropping,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The cat that purrs in its sleep⁠—",
    "indent": 1
   },
   {
    "text": "The foolish fisher woman!",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Her heart is on the deep.",
    "indent": 1
   }
  ]
 ]
}